The euro eased slightly on Thursday morning as US President Barack Obama prepared to meet with Republican lawmakers at the White House in an attempt to end the deadlock that has kept the US Federal government from functioning properly for more than a week.

The common currency traded at $1.3506 at 7:24 GMT as investors hoped the meetings would produce a solution to keep the US from defaulting on its loans.

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi spoke at Harvard University on Wednesday, where he said that critics of the euro underestimated the region's political will. According to the Wall Street Journal, Draghi spoke mostly philosophically and underscored the region's commitment to the common currency.

Draghi said that at the height of the crisis, US-based critics were quick to doubt the currency's strength and looked at the eurozone as a fixed exchange rate regime. The euro, Draghi said, is an irreversible single currency.

With the worst of the eurozone's financial crisis seemingly over, the region's next big step will be a unified banking system. Despite some resistance from eurozone members who are worried that the union will impede on the terms set out in the bloc's founding treaty, the union's formation is expected to take top priority once Germany has formed its coalition government.

All of the EU's banks will fall under one banking supervisor, the ECB, and will be governed by a set of rules which break the link between individual governments and failing banks. At his speech in Massachusetts, Draghi claimed that he expects to see the plans put into action by the beginning of 2015.